Talk:Judeo-Paganism

I am currently e-mailing folks for help on this new page, as I don't know as much on this topic as some folks might. I am a Reform Jew (with some interest in Paganism) in the middle of a largely Conservadox enclave at Rutgers University, and am therefore not in as good a position as some others might be (such as Melissa Oringer, for example) to tell the movement's story (if it has a story). Rickyrab 20:22, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

so, while the intro claims that these are groups trying to reconstruct Ancient Near Eastern (pre-Mosaic) paganism, there is no such evidence in the links. "Judeo-Pagans" seem to be simply Wiccans with a Jewish background. Is there any actual reconstructivist group? Otherwise I do not see how this is notable as different from Wicca, it could just be merged there as a comment that some Wiccans have a Jewish background. dab (ᛏ) 11:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Since I started this page, I noticed that a lot of the online references to "Judeo-Paganism" have become sporks of this article. OTOH, I do notice various Judeo-Pagans with weblogs here and there, and the sporks extend to the Pagan Wikipedias that are floating around out there. Have I inadvertently made a hitherto nonnotable topic notable? I dunno. I suspect it may have been notable to begin with, just as a high school is notable to its students and alumni, but who knows? Should we fold this into Natib Qadish? — Rickyrab | Talk 03:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It sounds as if Judeo-Paganism is distinct from both Natib Qadish and Wicca. It is true that some Wiccans have a Jewish background (e.g. Starhawk), but they are not necessarily practising Judeo-Wicca. Presumably to be a Judeo-Pagan, you would have to be focussing mainly on the relevant deities, rather than a selection of deities from different mythologies as is often the case in Wicca. Judeo-Paganism sounds a bit similar to Christian Wicca. I also heard about an attempt to create Muslim witchcraft - I don't know how many people are into that, though. I guess this is just another case of Syncretism. yewtree1968 | Talk

It does seem that "Judeo-Paganism" is distinct from both Natib Qadish and Wicca. However, "Judeo-Paganism", if I am reading the intent of the original author correctly, is the Reconstructionst Pagan (Polytheistic Reconstructionism) religion based on pre-monotheistic Judaism. Ridan 02:19, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Alrighty; to clarify my comments above: It seems the original author intended this article to be a discussion about a Reconstructionist form of Hebrew religion. Later, somebody else edited the page about a form of Jewish Wicca, or somesuch. I think this page should be about the Reconstructionist religion, and the Jewish Wicca material moved to a new page or to the Wicca page. Ridan 06:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree and, in fact, I'd go further. The paganism which is part of a Judeo-Pagan's religion need not be Wiccan at all. There may be many different kinds of Judeo-Paganism, some harkening back to Pagan paths originating in the Middle East, others a meld of current traditions (like Wicca or Neo-Druidism) with Judaism. Some may be practiced by people of Jewish descent who find an equal or greater affinity for a Pagan world-view or ritual or seasonal observance, others may believe that Judaism itself is more Pagan than the mainstream would have one believe, and ascribe to a different interpretation of it's principles. In any event, while "Jewitchery" may be synonymous with "Jewish Wicca, I don't believe they are the same as "Judeo-Paganism" - though they might be a subset of it.Rosencomet (talk) 16:29, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. Ridan (talk) 16:04, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Template

The point of the template is that Judeo-Pagans use the original pre-monotheistic mythological deities listed in template. It is not inappropriate, and continued removal without discussion on the talk page is vandalism. Could some other editor please restore the template? IPSOS (talk) 19:20, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Tribal Identity

I would refer the person who placed the "citation needed" tag to the article Who is a Jew[1]. It is common knowledge, and part of Rabbinical Jewish law (halakha), the Code of Jewish Law (Shulchan Aruch), and the Talmud, that a Jew is either someone who's biological mother was Jewish or someone who goes through conversion. No matter how devoutly you may agree with the principles of Judaism or decide (for some reason, say, to satisfy your in-laws) to follow Jewish laws, unless one of these two conditions are met, you are not a Jew. On the other hand, a born or converted Jew may subsequently declare him/herself an atheist or a member of another religion, he/she may break Jewish law by worshiping idols or committing murder or in any other way, may disbelieve in the Biblical account of history or the existence of God, yet he/she remains a Jew - just one that (according to halakha) is not doing what he/she is "supposed" to be doing. Being a Jew is membership in a people, not a declaration of belief. Just like being an American, you may not agree with the constitution, you may be an anarchist or a communist or a monarchist, but a citizen is a citizen. If you break the law, you may be a citizen in prison, you may have some of your rights suspended, but you will be an American prisoner.Rosencomet (talk) 16:17, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

By the way, the article "Judaism as a Tribal Identity" in Green Egg Magazine was not written by "various authors". The issue had other articles about Jewish Paganism, but not on that subject. Anyone with a copy of that issue might review the others as a source of reference material. Rosencomet (talk) 02:46, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Notability

Time to establish the notability of this thing, I suppose.

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

The relevant guideline is probably WP:ORG. The three zine articles listed at present are clearly not sufficient. Based on the google searches linked above, notability is questionable, but not obviously lacking. The term generates a few thousand hits on the web, but is unknown to google scholar. Tagging with {{notability}} for now. dab (𒁳) 13:48, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the notability depends somewhat on how narrowly defined the topic is: Jewish witches may be unknown to Google Scholar, but there are academic papers on Jewish groups adopting pagan practices. I'd just added one such reference. Under the broader title of Judeo-Paganism, it is notable, and I support the title change suggestion for that reason. --82.5.55.216 (talk) 10:06, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Judeo-Paganism Proposal

I propose, though I don't exactly know how to handle the change, that this article be reverted to it's original name, Judeo-Paganism, and that "Jewitchery" be a section within in, with a redirect page here. There are many Jewish pagans who do not consider themselves witches. There are Jews, for instance, who consider Judaism to have its roots in Palestinian or Canaanite paganism, and their path would have nothing to do with Wicca or witchcraft. Furthermore, Jewitchery defined as "Jewish Wicca" is even more a subset, since one can be a witch without ascribing to the Wiccan religious movement (such as a family-tradition witch). In fact, there is a difference between Judeo-Paganism and Jewish Neopaganism, as some Judeo-Pagans could be paleo-pagans or meso-pagans.

I also think Esimal's justification that Jewitchery is more common (or that Judeo-Paganism is less widespread) is both unsupported and irrelevant IMO; it's like saying an article on Judeo-Christianity should just be called Christianity, since Jews are the minority. I guess the same goes for the term African-American; just change it to American, since most Americans aren't of African descent.

Also, the line "from the terms Jew and witch, "shaman"/"sage" in its pure meaning" is poetic but merely someone's opinion. There need not be any relationship between either Jew or witch and sage or shaman. The word Jewitch would have to be changed back to Judeo-Pagan in the text of the article wherever appropriate as well.Rosencomet (talk) 18:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Ridan (talk) 16:04, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

So why not move it? The topic is notable; it's the particular name of the topic whose notability is in dispute. — Rickyrab | Talk 08:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Hebrew?

Funny I can't find anything about this in Hebrew on Google, nor is there an article about it on the Hebrew Wikipedia. What the devil is this? Siúnrá (talk) 21:47, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Not sure why you would expect to -- Hebrew Wikipedia tends to be oriented towards what's of interest to people in Israel, and not a compendious database of everything done by small fringe offshoots of Judaism worldwide... AnonMoos (talk) 22:02, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

It's still poorly sourced. It is not unheard of in Neopagan topics in particular that what is presented as "a religion" turns out to be a group of five people somewhere in the US. The only indication that this goes beyond your general internet paganism is the pointer to the group Am ha-Aretz, for which no references whatsoever are cited. I think the notability of this topic depends on the notability of said group. --dab (𒁳) 09:54, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I am afraid that, interesting though it is, nothing of this even remotely meets WP:ORG. There is a website at primitivehebrews.org. The site is linked to by all of two other sites on the wide internet, resulting in all of seven google hits for "Primitive Hebrew Assembly". The website is more like a placeholder than a real website.It has a few pictures with captions, and beyond this it has just a bunch of pages filled with lorem ipsum placeholder text. They aren't even pretending to be a bona fide community.

This is the typical "me and my mates created a new branch of Neopaganism last month, let's write a Wikipedia article" phenomenon which we see very often in Category:Neopaganism. The only source we have is an interview with one guy in a Neodruid journal, in 2001. Now, eight years later, there is still only this one guy and his website, still with no content other than "lorem ipsum". Compare this to Natib Qadish which was deleted as a one-woman project, but that woman was at least trying to produce the illusion of an existing community. I don't think this article would stand any kind of chance at AfD, but I would prefer to salvage it by merging it someplace. --dab (𒁳) 11:08, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Theology

Judeo-pagans worship a family of gods and goddess with the shekinah kallah (The queen of the shabbat) and adoni (king of the universe) as mother and father and the mitzvah's as their children (Adam & Eve)- Early humans who lived in the garden of eden. man kicked the mother and father out of the garden as a resort Adoni stripped them of their immorality and man felt pain for the first time. -- 16:19, 28 December 2013‎ 75.83.130.224

I would be careful about such flat statements. I know Judaeo-pagans whose belief system is nothing like this. They don't regard the Shekinah as "the mother" or the mitzvahs as "their children", or man to have kicked the god and goddess out of the garden. Frankly, I've never heard of this scenario. It can be a big mistake to assume that different religions are the same but with different names. It is often not the case at all. Rosencomet (talk) 19:37, 29 December 2013 (UTC)